IPS 2000
Board Meeting Minutes

The minutes of the business
and board meetings of the Garda symposium were unanimously approved.

Dr. Chauhan was singled
out for his tremendous effort in putting on the IPS 2000 meeting.

Dr. Wall gave the secretary’s
report. The Society now numbers 201 active members, a loss of 2 members in two
years. About half of the members are from Europe and over 1/3 are from Japan.
The Garda proceedings were late for a variety of reasons. Steps have been taken
to insure the 2000 proceedings will be on time. The 1998 proceedings were on
budget. The office of the secretariat had operating expenses of $976.21 for
the past two years, mostly for secretarial assistance, faxes and mailings.

The program committee met
in Halifax in April 14, consisting of Drs. Chauhan, Casson and Flanagan. Ninety-one
abstracts were received (114 for the Garda meeting). The committee again decided
to have topics for each session with oral presentations mixed with posters.
We have added the IPS lecture, given this year by Dr. Stephen Drance.

The program committee gave
out two junior investigator grants to Andrew Anderson and Robert Rejdak from
a group of 7 applicants.

The secretariat will compile
a database of junior investigator awards so duplication will not occur. In the
future, we will send the specifics of what is to be done with the award. This
money is to be used for travel and registration fee will be waived. We will
send a blank registration form stamped “complimentary.”

Dr. Mills gave the treasurer’s
report. The treasury was successfully housed was in Hamburg for 18 years and
in DM. A transfer to the euro took place and the value of our account in U.
S. dollars has declined to $21,743.98 but over one-third of our dues not yet
in. In the past year, $35,500 has been decreased by $10,000 to Bal for meeting
and $26,704.42 to Kugler. About $22,000 is for the volume and $5000 is for reprints.
Our peak treasury of about $65,000 was in 1992 after the Malmö meeting. Dr.
Mills reported the causes of the decrease in the treasury were multifactorial.
We have lost about 100 members without a reduction in the cost of the proceedings.
The DM and Euro conversions along with the strong U.S. dollar have also contributed.
Lastly, with the fixed cost of Proceedings, dues no longer cover the cost of
the proceedings. Therefore, if we don’t make money from the meeting, we go into
the red for the year.

We now accept credit cards
and this has increased our ability to collect dues and it helps with exchange
of foreign currency. Dr. Mills pointed out the difference of $15,000 was mostly
because the dues do not cover the proceedings. The board then, as a cost cutting
measure, decided not to pay for proceedings reprints in the future. Dr. Mills
said our dues were set by the DM that has declined. Because of changes in exchange
rate and that dues no longer cover the costs of the proceedings, we agreed a
reasonable correction was to increase it to $75 per year.

It was suggested that we
tie dues to meeting registration. Dr. Wild suggested we go to one-year dues
to get in sync with the biannual meeting and then go to a two-year assessment.
Also, to simplify the new member sign up process it was suggested that the secretary
and treasurer automatically sign the form and the filter for scientific content
would be at the scientific program committee level. Dr. Wild suggested we try
to market the society better including registration forms that have our sponsors
on it. It was also suggested we identify new researchers at meetings like ARVO
and approach them individually.

Dr. Wild suggested we put
out a mass mailing type of flyer with sponsorship and membership form. Dr. Wall
will work with him to produce this. Hopefully, there will be associated corporate
sponsorship.

Communications: Dr. Wall
noted the website has been accessed 3921 times since June 1998. We will continue
to gradually add to the web site. Dr. Matusumoto speaking for Dr. Iwase said
a Japanese language perimetry web page is planned. The board endorsed this and
will cooperate.

Membership: Dr Werner, will
contact major organizations like AAO for mass mailings. Dr Matsumoto reported
Dr. Iwase is going to build a Japanese perimetry web page that will link to
the IPS home page.

We have again signed a contract
with Kugler to publish the symposia. Dr. B. Schwartz contacted Dr. Wall before
the meeting to discuss indexing of the proceedings for Index medicus. The Board
agreed not to change from Kugler and that the cost of publishing in a journal
that was indexed was prohibitive.

Dr. Wall presented a proposal
to put the IPS proceedings on the web. In the first 7 proceedings there are
3844 pages. Kugler has agreed to let us put the last 6 on the web site (3123
pages). Mr. Bakker says that in the beginning of year after publication we can
put the proceeding on the web. He will give us the .pdf files. He can do this
for the past two years. If we are able to do this, there are about 6000 pages
left to digitize. The total cost would be from $2400 to $5400 depending on the
extras and type of scanning. The board endorsed the concept. Sponsorship was
discussed.

Drs. Gloor and Hayreh were
suggested as IPS life members. They were approved pending approval by the full
membership.

Nomination of Officers
and New Board Members: Dr. Wild was nominated for another four years as president.
He was unanimously approved. Dr. Burk’s and Dr. Chauhan’s terms have expired.
There was some reorganizing of the board and some new members approved. Dr.
Brusini was proposed under Development. Ulrich Scheifer were nominated under
communications. Dr. Dannheim moves to membership. Dr. Flanagan was proposed
for the Scientific subdivision. Dr. Zulauf continues under scientific. Dr. Ivan
Goldberg was added under scientific. Dr. Kani under communications replaces
Dr. Matsumoto. For the At Large positions, Dr.’s Brusini and Iwase are retiring.
Dr. Åsman and Michele Iester were proposed. Dr. Casson was nominated by Dr Wall
as secretary-elect and seconded by Dr. Wild.

The location and date of
next meeting was discussed. Dr. Wild will bring Oxfordshire, June 26-29 to the
general business meeting.